By Fay Henderson de Díaz
The Ministry of Education of El Salvador has announced the creation of FANTEL, a national development effort financed with funds from the privatization of the country’s telephone company, ANTEL. One component of the effort is a scholarship program, FANTEL Scholarships for Higher Education. The program, which has an annual budget of $4.7 million, will fund university studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels both in-country and abroad for Salvadoran citizens who have demonstrated academic promise.
In announcing the scholarship program, Salvadoran Minister of Education Evelyn Jacir de Lovo emphasized the value of knowledge for emerging economies. Noting that 30% of the awards will be for study in national institutions and 70% will be for study abroad, the minister commented, “We are placing emphasis on education abroad because knowledge is global.”
The FANTEL scholarship program will be administered by an educational consortium composed of LASPAU and the Fundación para la Educación Integral Salvadoreña (FEDISAL) of El Salvador. The two organizations have created a partnership to jointly manage all facets of the program. A model for future collaborations, this is LASPAU’s first bilateral partnership with a Latin American organization to administer a Latin American-funded initiative.
The initiative complements LASPAU’s previous efforts on behalf of higher education in El Salvador. In 1996, a collaborative relationship between the Harvard Graduate School of Education, LASPAU, and the Salvadoran Fundación Empresarial para el Desarrollo Educativo (FEPADE) led to the creation of one of the most extensive higher education evaluation systems in Latin America at the time. One significant result of the initiative was to increase the quality of Salvadoran higher education. The FANTEL program is designed to further contribute to academic quality by enabling more top-level students to undertake studies in El Salvador and greater numbers of faculty and researchers to enhance their skills and knowledge through study abroad.
LASPAU’s partner, FEDISAL, a private nonprofit institution, was founded in 1992 by a group of private sector leaders and Don Bosco University (a LaSalle institution) in El Salvador to foster Salvadoran development through education initiatives. FEDISAL designs and administers social projects for national and international institutions. Since its inception, it has administered a range of programs, including national scholarships to provide educational opportunities for demobilized soldiers and insurrectionists after the Peace Agreement of 1996, national-level training for the handicapped, and job training. FEDISAL also has managed programs in curriculum design, the development of educational materials, teacher training, and the design of training for small business owners. FEDISAL’s board of directors includes leaders of the country’s private sector and members of the LaSalle community.
Promotion of the 2002 FANTEL grants commenced immediately after the formal inauguration of the program in September 2001. In November, evaluation teams began assessing the qualifications of applicants. The evaluation process included a personal interview with every applicant who met program requirements. FEDISAL and LASPAU presented a slate of recommended candidates for national and international grants to FANTEL in December 2001.
If you are interested in further information about this or any other program administered by LASPAU, please see the Programs section of LASPAU's website.
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